Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders
- Location: Moosic, PA
- League: International League 2013-2019; Triple-A East 2021; International League 2022-
- Class: AAA 2013-
- Affiliation: New York Yankees 2013-
- Ballpark: PNC Field 2013-
Team History[edit]
The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders of the International League, and briefly in Triple-A East, took their nickname upon returning from a 2012 season played entirely on the road during a stadium rebuild. The New York Yankees farmhands play their home games at PNC Field in Moosic, PA.
Their parent Yankees wanted them to play the rebuild season in their Staten Island farm team's ballpark, but the New York Mets vetoed that. The former Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees then played that campaign as the Empire State Yankees. Upon their return, they rather suddenly took a local nickname saluting Scranton, PA, and the region's status as a major railroad hub (there are in fact train tracks that run very close to the ballpark), and Scranton's claim to be the first city to have an electric streetcar network in the late 19th century. The creature on the team's logo is a porcupine; the prickly little fellows are common around the area and provided the last eliminated nickname option.
The 'Riders are among the teams Endeavor Group Holdings acquired in late 2021 and put under its newly created Diamond Baseball Holdingssubsidiary.[1] Endeavor, which was created in a merger of two talent agencies, also owns Ultimate Fighting Championship and Miss Universe. However, after the MLB Players Association threatened to block Endeavor talent agents from representing professional baseball players on the grounds that a talent agency owning baseball teams is a conflict of interest, Endeavor sold DBH to the equity firm Silver Lake Partners - a major investor in Endeavor.
In 2016, the RailRiders won their first International League championship and then defeated the Pacific Coast League champion El Paso Chihuahuas in the 2016 Triple-A Baseball National Championship, 3-1. The 2017 RailRiders came within one playoff series of being the first team to play at home in the National Championship Game, which is rotated among Triple-A parks.
What's the right sequence and punctuation for SWB? Good question! The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre baseball RailRiders, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton hockey Penguins, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport don't all concur, nor do the area's hotels. The U.S. Census Bureau puts Scranton first in naming the Metroplitan Statistical Area, as does Nielsen with the media market - and Scranton is larger in population than Wilkes-Barre. The city of Scranton and the city of Wilkes-Barre, PA - whose name, by the way, resulted not from a merger but from its founder naming it for two men - remain separate places, about 15 miles apart, and not a single city such as Winston-Salem, NC. Also, remember: The RailRiders don't play in Scranton or Wilkes-Barre; they play in Moosic - which is between the two but closer to Scranton.
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and the nearby Lehigh Valley IronPigs play their season series for the IronRail Trophy.
The 'Riders play Copa de la Diversión Hispanic engagement campaign games as Vejigantes de Scranton Wilkes/Barre (a vejigante is a Puerto Rican folkloric figure, a masked figure that takes part in carnivals).
Year By Year Record[edit]
Related Sites[edit]
| |||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
We're Social...for Statheads
Every Sports Reference Social Media Account
Site Last Updated:
Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction?
Subscribe to our Free Email Newsletter
Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREE
Your All-Access Ticket to the Baseball Reference Database
Do you have a sports website? Or write about sports? We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Find out more.